January Update

I know it's not quite the end of the month yet, but it's close enough.

As of today I have four short stories in the nebulous realm of "forthcoming".

The Collections Agent and Caught are forthcoming from Stupefying Stories. At some point. I blame the delay on the fact that one is just smidge over 7k words, the other just about 500.

In the Cool of the Day is forthcoming from Abyss & Apex. They have a new fiction editor which has resulted in a bit of a shuffle. (And Ms. Dalmater had never given me a solid publication date, so I'm practicing patience.)

Legacy is forthcoming in The Beast Within 4: Gears and Growls - edited by Jennifer Brozek. I believe the anthology is scheduled for publication later this summer.

I also wrote a short story this month. One of the first shorts I've written in a while. (The last one was Legacy.) This means I met my Write 1, Sub 1 goal for the month and gave me four stories I needed to get out to markets. As of this afternoon I have the following sitting in slush at various markets (including a few new-to-me like Waylines, Kalideotrope and One Story).

Made - contemporary paranormal featuring vampires, sex and magic (This is my January story)
Mother - literary
The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise - cyberpunk noir
Call-Center - contemporary not-a-zombie story
Love Like Dysphoria - dark contemporary flash
The Spider-thief and The Sorcerer - sword and sorcery featuring a thief who talks to bugs
The Hardest Kiss - dark fantasy retelling of Hades/Persephone with steampunk elements

Not my best month for sending stuff out (although I did send four of those seven out this morning) but still, not too shabby on the short story side.

In noveling news: I've been querying The Steampunk Novel since early December.
So far I've sent out 40 queries (in small batches).
I've had sixteen rejections.
20 queries are still pending.
3 partial requests.
1 full request.

That's not too shabby either.  :)